"The spheres of our calling seem not to be alike; yet one may be as useful and honorable as the other. I hope you will be faithful in all the duties assigned to you. No matter how humble the post, make it honorable by your faithful application of the principles of the Gospel. This principle should be the guide in all our labors.
"No doubt you meet with trials at Orderville; and where, indeed, do we not find them? There is only one way that I know of, to be free from them; and that is to live so God will wall us around, as He did Job and Enoch, and his people. But we are hardly prepared for that, although we have started right. Now, if we can keep our integrity and purity to the end of this life, then we shall enter into the rest of our Lord. Kind love to you and Sarah."
Sunday, April 21st, I attended two Saints' meetings and spoke in both of them; went home with a Mr. Tanner, not a member of the Church, and talked with him until midnight on the principles of the Gospel.
My wife Tamar wrote:
"I don't want you to feel that I have hard times. I know if I were surrounded with riches, it would not make my health any better. I know that I am greatly blessed; and like you, I am proud of my children, and I desire to bring them up in righteousness.
"I know that you are a man of God—and I want to uphold you. You see and comprehend many things that I do not, until you point them out, and explain them to me, and I know that you have never given me other than good counsel."
On Thursday, April 30, 1878, my forty-first birthday, I remained in the office, nursing Brother Jacobs.
On May 1st, my wife Tamar's twenty-sixth birthday, I walked fourteen miles, then took train sixteen miles to Trowbridge. Unable to find lodgings, I walked three miles to Heywood Lodge, where Joseph Trumble, game keeper, received me. I ate a cold supper, and starting upstairs to bed, was taken with a chill, and suffered all night. The next day I was still in pain, and kept my bed. On the 3rd, I received a letter from President Jacobs, informing me that I was released from the Bristol conference, and appointed to labor in the London conference. By his request I returned to Bristol, very feeble in body; but on Sunday, May 5th, a fair day, I attended a good testimony meeting, and partook of the sacrament. A letter from Apostle Wilford Woodruff, dated. Historian's Office, Salt Lake City, April 18, 1878, awaited my arrival:
"Elder John R. Young. Dear Brother: I received your interesting kind letter of March 11, 1878, and am much pleased to hear from you—also pleased to learn that you keep a journal. I wish all Elders in the vineyard would do it.
"I returned from St. George in March to attend the April conference, and have been very busy here in Church business. Among other things, Erastus Snow and I have charge of building the Manti temple, which will occupy considerable of our time. We have had a great deal of hard labor to perform about the temple ground, before laying the first corner stone. We have had the mountain to move; forty feet high, about two hundred feet square, to make a place for the foundation.